Month: May 2025

ACLU and Community Groups Launch Campaign to Demand Justice and Transparency as Trump DOJ Abandons Federal Police Oversight | American Civil Liberties Union

Commentary:  2 key concepts about policing that are important to understand.

The first is policing is local.  Police in California and New York are similar but they are also different.  If a police department in California does something improper that is not an indication that the police in New York are doing the same improper act.   This leads to the second point, Governmental Home Rule.  This means that each municipality is it’s own government.  This allows the local city, town, or village (c-t-v) to have dominion over it’s municipal agencies.  This allows each local government to control it’s police department.  Therefor each municipal government, if it chooses, can MANDATE police reform of it’s local police department.

The bottom line is that the DOJ is not needed to initiate police reform.  The Governments in Memphis, TN, Louisville, KY, Lexington, MS, Phoenix, AZ, Minneapolis, MN, Mount Vernon, NY, and Worcester, MA, can force their local police department to initiate or continue reforms suggested from the DOJ investigations.

When police department reform is initiated at the local level it works better.  The Mayor or Supervisor of a C-T-V calls for police reform, the Council or Trustees support it (at least through a budget line), the Chief or Commissioner of the police department makes the change.  If the Chief/Commissioner doesn’t follow through with the reform that can be fired.  If the Council or Trustees don’t support the reform efforts they can be voted out of office.  The same with the Mayor or Supervisor if they don’t mandate police reform they can be voted out of office.  Now the citizens have a voice, if they think reform is not needed they can use their voices and votes to make changes.  The same if a large enough group is calling for reform they can pressure their local government to make changes.

This is much better that having the secret DOJ control local police reform.  The C-T-V elected officials have no voice, only to agree with the DOJ’s findings.  The community can’t pressure anyone because the DOJ is not elected by the community.

The ACLU Press Release

The Seven States Safety Campaign targets police departments where the Biden DOJ found rampant police brutality and racial targeting
— Read on www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-and-community-groups-demand-justice-and-transparency-as-trump-doj-abandons-federal-police-oversight

Let’s Empower Jurors to Halt an Injustice | Cato Institute

But that could just as easily have come from President Donald Trump. Through a series of flagrantly unconstitutional executive orders, Trump has sought to silence the opposition. This culminated with an executive order demanding that the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security investigate former administration officials who pushed back against Trump’s frivolous claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

The Framers understood the danger of a despotic regime and regarded the criminal jury trial as a key procedural safeguard to help ensure that only those acts and individuals society deemed truly culpable result in criminal punishment. This is of particular importance today — in a nation plagued by rampant overcriminalization and coercive plea bargaining — where often all that stands between us and a criminal record is a prosecutor’s decision to charge.
— Read on www.cato.org/commentary/lets-empower-jurors-halt-injustice

Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative-Breaking the 71%:  A Path Toward Racial Equity in the Criminal Legal System

OAG and OPD Release Groundbreaking Report on Racial Disparities in Maryland’s Criminal Legal System

Attorney General Anthony Brown, in partnership with Public Defender Natasha Dartigue, is proud to announce the release of the Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative’s inaugural report, “Breaking the 71%: A Path Toward Racial Equity in the Criminal Legal System.”

This comprehensive study addresses the alarming reality that Black Marylanders, while comprising only 30% of our state’s population, represent 71% of those incarcerated in our correctional facilities—the highest such disparity nationwide.

The report presents 18 evidence-based recommendations to reform law enforcement practices, criminal sentencing, health services, detention policies, reentry programs, education, and youth justice. These recommendations reflect input from state agencies, community organizations, academic institutions, and directly impacted individuals.  View the fu​ll report